German Films Quarterly 1 2012

HEIRATE MICHCASATE CONMIGO Contact uli.gaulke@berlin.de www.uli-gaulke.de that’s how it all began. In the years as a student, Gaulke also jobbed as a projectionist, including at the traditional program cinema Arsenal. After the fall of the Wall he and some friends founded the cinema Balasz, and he began to study Directing at the HFF “Konrad Wolf” in Potsdam. After his first two films, he set off into the big wide world to search for like-minded people. COMRADES IN DREAMS (2006) is about film projectionists: the manager of an Indian “tent cinema”, three friends in Ouagadou- gou/Africa, who transport film reels through town on their mopeds, comrade film projectionists in North Korea, and Penny in Wyoming, who operates a cinema to combat her loneliness. A globetrotting documentary as a declaration of love for one’s own art. This time cinema itself is the germ cell – a space cap- sule of dreams, whose operators appear astonishingly similar across the continents. “My cinema-makers are all missionaries of a global idea. They trade in dreams, often films pass through their hands and go on to circle the globe,” Gaulke says. It is no wonder that COMRADES IN DREAMS also embarked on a suc- cessful journey around the world: produced like all Gaulke’s films by Berlin-based production company Flying Moon, this ho- mage was shown at numerous festivals and sold, among other places, to America, Australia and Israel. Of course, it was also premiered in its own locations – except in North Korea. Do his origins prompt Gaulke to travel mainly in an easterly di- rection or to socialist states? “I feel particularly drawn to places where people are under pressure and a sense of personal free- dom is especially precious.” In 2011 he worked in China; his film about the PEACE OLD JAZZ BAND, which has been playing in the Peace Hotel in Shanghai for more than 30 years now, will be launched in German cinemas in 2012. Another germ cell: an old hotel, 80-year-old musicians, the oldest incumbent jazz band in the world, whose dramatically changing biographies are a reflection of China’s history. Uli Gaulke is an impassioned storyteller who believes in the power of emotions, although very willing to use the latest tech- nology as well. He is busy learning how to use 3D technology for his upcoming projects: one is a film about Circus Krone, another melting pot of cultures gathered under a single tent roof. He is very concerned that public TV channels in Germany are withdrawing increasingly from documentary film produc- tion. But it will take far more to make someone like Uli Gaulke abandon his dream of filmmaking. Christiane Peitz ULI GAULKE was born in Schwerin in 1968. He studied Phy- sics and Information Technology at the Humboldt University Berlin, working simultaneously as a projectionist in several Ber- lin cinemas. Together with friends, he founded the cinema Ba- lasz, and as from 1995 he studied Directing at the University of Film and Television “Konrad Wolf” in Potsdam, where his graduation film, shot in Cuba, was HAVANNA, MI AMOR (2000), which won the German Film Award for Best Documentary in 2001. Since then he has made numerous internationally acclaimed, prize-winning documentary films. MARRY ME (HEIRATE MICH) was produced in collaboration with Jeannette Eggert in 2003; COMRADES IN DREAMS (2006) portrays film projectionists in India, Africa, the USA and North Korea, and PINK TAXI (2009) is about women taxi drivers in Moscow. His projects realized for television include the 5-part series DER OSTEN MÖBELT AUF (2006) about the first branch of IKEA in Thuringia, DIE JAHRHUNDERTFLUT – SCHICKSALSTAGE IN MITTELDEUTSCHLAND (2007), and an episode film 20 X BRANDENBURG, which received the Grimme Prize in 2011. Like all his other works for the cinema, his current film PEACE OLD JAZZ BAND is also being produced in cooperation with the Ber- lin-based production company Flying Moon. The filmmaker and author runs seminars and workshops, including at the HFF Potsdam, the Berlinale Talent Campus, in New Delhi, La Paz and Cochabama/Bolivia, as well as in Tashkent/Uzbekistan and Dushanbe/Tajikistan. GFQ 1-2012 5 PINK TAXIphoto©AxelSchneppat/FlyingMoonFilm MARRYMEphoto©AxelSchneppat/FlyingMoonFilm DIRECTOR PORTRAIT